The bottle you disliked is worth more than the one you loved

Likes are broad. Dislikes are specific, and they are said with far more conviction.

Ask somebody what wine they enjoy and you will get a shrug and a colour. Ask what they cannot stand and you will get a precise answer, delivered quickly, often with a story attached.

That asymmetry is useful. A dislike narrows the field faster than any number of likes, because it rules things out rather than gesturing at them. Heavy oak, searing acidity, anything sweet: each one removes whole regions from consideration and does it reliably.

So we ask, and we weight the answer heavily. It is the only question in the intake where telling us what you do not want is more useful than telling us what you do.

Unsigned draft. The scouts sign the reads they have written.